


Bundled Up

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 20:32:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12441186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Once the air starts cooling in the city, Nyx misses home the most. Noctis makes it his mission to find the cure for his seasonal nostalgia.





	Bundled Up

**Author's Note:**

> for day one of the [deathbyfluff october challenge](https://nyxnoctocalypse.tumblr.com/post/165381753552/fluffpocalypse-october-2017-prepare-to-die)

Autumn manifested differently in the Crown City than it did in Galahd. For the longest time, Nyx thought that Insomnia had only two seasons: gross hot and “Shiva’s tits, it’s _cold!_ ” He didn’t feel, couldn’t even _see_ the transitional seasons in between for the first few years that he lived in the city. Where he knew spring and fall were supposed to be on the yearly calendar was overwritten with extended swaths of blistering summer and the brutality of winter.

There was so little _color_ to help mark the passage of time within the city. Insomnia was a somber place, all gilded ash and onyx, multi-storied monuments to a forgotten history. When he was a child, he would wake up every morning in October to a new color outside his window. The lush greens of summer would soak up the last golden rays of sunlight and hold them close to warm them yellow in the cooling months to follow. Trees burned orange and red, the bay darkened with every gulp of discarded leaves, and the gentle nip in the wind blew away the summer seafood menus of the restaurants to prepare for the upcoming harvest.

He saw autumn, he felt autumn, and he tasted it everywhere he went on his island. It had its own identity and energy that enveloped everything in a nostalgic coziness. The air got colder, but everything else felt warmer.

Insomnia didn’t really have that. He remembered his first few “autumns” in the city being overcast, both in weather and in temperament. The Wall diluted the color of the sky, reflecting the concrete colors of the skyscrapers instead of the bright blue sea. The sky rippled with the strain of a dying soul instead of the weightlessness of white clouds.

He remembered cracking open cheap beer cans for himself instead of mixing seasonal cocktails for the islanders back home. He remembered ordering take-out that was a poor imitation of the traditional recipes of Galahd he hoped were still being served in what little was left of his home. He remembered the vacant echo of his own apartment as he lit a votive for the dead at the end of the season instead of celebrating their life out in the streets like he used to.

He got used to it. He had to get used to a lot of things he didn’t like about city life. He worried about his job and his friends and little else for the longest time. He didn’t worry about the change of seasons or missing the little indulgences that came with them. Sure, the local cafes tacked on their “homemade pumpkin spice lattes” to every menu and the grocery stores cleared out whole aisles to fill with brightly-wrapped bars of sugar to pelt at kids for stepping on private property, but there was no soul to the season.

“That’s where you’re wrong. Look!”

Noctis pushed his phone into Nyx’s face like a toddler bringing home a finger-painted masterpiece from pre-school. Nyx’s eyes squinted against the bright light of the screen in the dusky gloom of the apartment. His tiny TV screamed in terror as the leading lady of the slasher flick they were watching was accosted by the masked serial killer in the back-lot woods. Noctis lowered the volume while Nyx held his phone at a less bruising distance from his face.

“Soul of the Season,” the digital article read. “An authentic harvest celebration! Cider and doughnuts and more to be served along pumpkin-lit pathways! Stroll by bonfires and stop for ghost stories at your leisure. Free to the public, all ages welcome. Begins at sunset in Meridian Park.”

Nyx glanced up at Noct’s bright stare, fluorescent blue in the thriller light, looking eagerly for Nyx’s approval. He never had to search for it, but Nyx didn’t know how to tell him this time that he always saw plugs like these, and that any of the ones he hazarded a visit to were just full of hastily thrown up snack tables and under-payed teens in witch hats reading assigned lines off their phone.

“Come on, even if it sucks, we can still just walk around the park,” Noctis pressed, reading the skepticism in his eyes. “Have you ever been to Meridian Park? It’s pretty in the fall. You’ll like it.”

He said it with such certainty, having decided that they were going long before he showed Nyx the advertisement. He snatched back his phone and settled against Nyx’s side for the remainder of the movie. Nyx smiled to himself, obediently obliging Noct’s choice with a hand through his hair, pressing the prince’s head back to kiss him in agreement.

The event wasn’t for another few days. Nyx had never been to the park. The Meridian district was well off his beaten loop between the Citadel, Malbo Smul’s, and home. Noctis seemed familiar with it though. He drove them straight to the most secluded little corner of the parking lot, well out of the way of any other cars, like he’d claimed the spot years ago and it belonged to him by habit alone. He took Nyx’s hand immediately upon exiting the car, leading him through the open gate that welcomed pedestrians into the park.

“You’ve been to this thing before?” Nyx asked, eying the confident bounce to the prince’s stride.

“Not to this event, no. But yes, I do come here often.” His smirk curled flirtatiously into his cheek and he hugged himself closer against Nyx’s arm. The unashamed affection was something that Nyx was still getting used to, still adored and somewhat feared in public. But once the thick trunks of the pines lining the main walkway closed around them, shading the crunch of the gravel in crisp fall coolness, he felt just as safe with the prince as he did in his own apartment.

When the park opened up before them, Nyx felt as if he’d walked right back in time. The forever greens of the pine trees slowly struck into golden maples and deep, ochre oaks. Long carpets of trimmed grass were evenly coated in crumpling leaves and he could hear the subtle hiss of movement in the boughs as the air brushed through the bursting colors. They were the same color as the sunset, bleeding through the Wall far overhead. The falling light blazed through the wreaths of crimson and amber to print their shadows across the ground.

The thin gravel footpaths were, as promised, lined with carved out squashes of varying shapes and colors. Each had a different face or pattern or creature cut into them, and each had a little name tag wrapped around the stem to proudly announce the artisan behind each. Some were shakily written in crayon, others were neatly scrawled in ink. There were tents and campfires scattered throughout the park, wood-smoke sharpening the frigid city air. The flicker of the flames were like friendly arms beckoning strangers out of the cold.

It wasn’t _too_ busy. It wasn’t set up like every other agro-tourism attraction he’d been disappointed by in the past. The prices on the food and wares they passed along the pumpkin paths were modest, and a lot of the vendors had hand-made signs assuring customers that proceeds from the event went to immigrant relief efforts. That was the most surprising part of the whole event for Nyx. He recognized braids and ink-marks and beaded jewelry on many of the participants in the cozy event. And, likewise, he recognized the complete opposite. Galahdian and Lucian alike hosted tents and fires and craft demonstrations.

“How many years have you been doing this?” he asked the woman serving cider near the middle of the park. Her skin was fairer than his own people, but darker than Noct’s. Her hair was brown and long and braided down her shoulder with fake autumn leaves.

“I think this is our third or fourth year?” she said, ladling the dark, steaming liquid into striped paper cups. “It was really just for the kids when we started. The daycare center was closed and they all wanted to play around on Spirit’s Eve. So, we ended up here because it was free and we could fit and got some tiny pumpkins to fiddle with. People took an interest in what we were doing, we talked, we shared, and we started building this up every year!”

The cider tasted _real._ Not that over-pasteurized, concentrated piss they sold by the gallons in the supermarkets with the lie of “natural” on the packaging. It was sweet and it was warm and he could feel it seep into his whole body instead of landing like acid in the pit of his stomach. Where the signs said “homemade,” he could actually believe that they were true. While every vendor was reasonably priced, by the end of the night, he didn’t want to know how much they had spent on trying absolutely everything.

“You want it, I want it, I’ll pay for it,” Noctis insisted every time Nyx suggested they should stop. “It all goes to a good cause, anyway.” The thirteen-year-old manning the dreamcatcher stall beamed when Noctis told him to keep the change.

There was a woodcarver that whittled away on sculptures beside her table, gathering spectators before selling her crafts. There was handmade jewelry and charms, a candle-maker, a soap-maker, a little old lady that knitted scarves and socks and gloves and quilts. Noctis bought a thick blanket of orange plaid and a crocheted Carbuncle keychain. They bought pumpkin butter and apple preserves, cute little goodie bags of granola, and vintage candies sold from out of dark, wooden barrels.

By the time they sat down on a log bench by one of the bonfires for the ghost stories, they had a brown paper bag full of seasonal treasures. Noctis wrapped the knitted blanket around the both of them, chasing off the night chill at their backs and catching the glow of the fire at their front. He smashed himself against Nyx’s side as if they were on their own couch, helping Nyx’s arm around his waist and rustling around his bag of goodies for those freshly baked cider doughnuts he’d bought two bags of.

“You know that impulse buying is a very real problem for people, right?” Nyx teased.

“It’s charitable donations. The royal treasury should be very proud. Look, I’m even feeding the hungry.” He tore a sugar-coated doughnut in half, revealing fluffy, golden dough inside, and pressed one half to Nyx’s mouth.

Nyx snorted at the childish insistence, but obliged the prince with a bite. Real flavor, baked in an oven with love. He could taste it in the dough. Brown sugar and cinnamon and apple cider. As light as a cloud on his tongue. Noctis moaned in ecstasy next to him.

“We have to come here again,” he said around a mouthful of the baked delicacy. “Like, _tomorrow_ again. _And_ next year again. Right?”

He glanced up at Nyx expectantly, gauging his review of the event. As if he needed to say in words how much he loved the place.

“Of course we’re coming back,” Nyx said for him anyway, brushing a thumb against the corner of Noct’s mouth where granules of sugar had gathered. “Thanks, by the way.”

“It’s nothing.” Noctis nods out at the storyteller and all of the vendors beyond the darkness of the fire. “They did all the work.”

“Not what I meant. Although thanks for that, too. I meant… thanks for listening.”

It wasn’t always easy to talk about the traditions of home. Sometimes he was afraid that he sounded ungrateful for the chances he had in Insomnia. That he didn’t appreciate the opportunity Regis had afforded him by bemoaning all that Insomnia was not. He had his grievances with Lucis, yeah, but it had saved him from desolation when no one else would have lifted a finger to do so. By entrusting himself to the city that didn’t want him, he found the one person who did.

Noctis smiled at him, the firelight warming his face and tangling ombre colors into his hair. He was everything that Nyx had been missing between the country and the city. He had made Insomia feel like home to him, long after the rent he paid on the apartment told him it was.

“After all the bullshit problems I make you listen to?” Noctis chuckled. “I think I owed it to you to listen to some of yours. Now, quiet, I want to hear this.”

The storyteller loped around the campfire with his tale of ghostly woe, flashing his fingers at some of the kids to make them startle and laugh. It was so much like home that it almost hurt to feel so happy. The fire licking their knees, the blanket wrapped around them, the hot food in their bellies, and Noct cuddled up to his side; it was the warmest Nyx had felt in far too long.

“You’re too good to me, little king.”

“That’s not being quiet, hero.”


End file.
